


Fifteen

by cherrysprite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Cheating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Getting Together, Insecure Theo Raeken, M/M, Past Liam Dunbar/Brett Talbot - Freeform, Past Theo Raeken/Brett Talbot, Songfic, fifteen, not thiam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-10-01 20:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20396146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrysprite/pseuds/cherrysprite
Summary: This is life before you know who you're gonna beAt fifteenLiam and Theo are broken up about being cheated on, but as it turns out, not everything to come out of it was bad.





	Fifteen

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so being me I kind of forgot that kids generally start freshman year in the US when they're fourteen, but Taylor Swift said so, okay?

When Liam was fifteen, he came to Beacon Hills High and walked through the hallways, chin held high and a confident smile on his face that completely betrayed what he was feeling inside. On the inside, under all of the layers of primping and planning out everything, Liam's thoughts were swirling around along with the dread in his stomach, ready to trip over someone's foot or sit in the wrong spot or embarrass himself some other way. He waited and watched for anything that could hurt him, which could come from all directions in a school that was much bigger than what he was used to and full of kids who would be just as two-faced as the ones he knew before.

He had been seeking out his best friend Mason when he narrowly avoided being hit in the face by someone's once-jammed locker. He let out a way too high-pitched squeak as he stopped in his tracks. The upperclassman ignored him and Liam tried to go on his way when one of the guys' friends spoke up. "Dude, are you trying to behead the kid? Calm down," another one laughed, and Liam glanced up at him nervously when the chuckle in his voice made the dread in his gut feel more like butterflies. "You okay?" He asked Liam, looking down a considerable amount. Liam swallowed dryly. This guy had to be at least six feet tall, and had the cutest little smile he'd ever seen.

"Um, fine," Liam said, trying to squeeze by. So much for his confident attitude. He'd had a good run of exactly two and a half minutes, which was honestly better than expected. 

Tall Upperclassman didn't leave him alone after he tried to walk away, and Liam's face felt hot. What was his deal? "Haven't seen you before," he commented, and his eyes landed on the schedule Liam had gripped tightly in his slightly shaky hands. "Ah, you're a freshman. You know how to get around yet? I know where that classroom is," He said, pointing at the first room on the list.

Liam was seriously dying and trying to will himself to calm down, but the scent of his aftershave or whatever he was wearing was already getting into his head, and Liam could imagine just drowning in it. "No, I, um, missed orientation," Liam admitted meekly, immediately mortified at the way he sounded. 

"Well, I'm Brett, I'm a senior. Let me help you feel a little more comfortable," He said, and Liam could have sworn there was a hint of a purr to it.

It didn't take long for Brett to make a move on him, and Liam didn't reject his advances at all. His not-so-secret crush for the older boy took him places, some of them including the little alcove under the stairwell or under the bleachers after lacrosse practice. Three weeks into his freshman year, Liam had his very first kiss with the sun shining down through the metal bleachers, one of Brett's hands on his cheek and the other on his hip. He made him feel like he was flying, and Brett had smiled at him after they both pulled back, and Liam was too dazed from it all to care very much when Brett made him promise to keep them a secret, at least for then. He just assumed that Brett wasn't out yet, or that people would judge him for dating someone younger than he was. 

When Brett took him on his first date, he picked him up in his car and Liam swore he was going to die on the spot. He drove them to the movie theater where they watched a comedy that turned more into making out in the dark back of the room, but Liam wasn't complaining. He felt the fireworks behind his eyes and in his chest just like he had read and heard about so many times before, and he chased them each and every time they took a pause. Brett kissed him goodbye on his front step and made sure he got inside safely before he went inside to his mom, who had been waiting up for him to come back, waiting to hear all about it. Jenna worried about him dating an older boy, but Liam managed to convince her that he was more responsible with his age and still seventeen. She told him to be careful with him not to get his heart broken, but Liam was quick to remind her that he was good at keeping himself safe.

It was a cool afternoon in December, under the bleachers again, when someone said "I love you" to him for the first time, and he choked on his breath when he finally registered the words. He had been laying against Brett's chest, playing with a blade of grass, but he looked up at him with wonder and felt little tears start to pool at the corners of his eyes. 

"I love you too," Liam said, at that point believing it wholeheartedly, and the rest of the world fell away when they kissed again. 

Brett, as it seemed, had that effect a lot, so much that Liam knew to expect it whenever he was around. 

What he did not expect, however, was for the floor to feel like it was crumbling underneath him as he stood in the school hallway with his boyfriend and another freshman, the freshman who had just slapped Brett in the face in front of everyone. The sound felt almost muted, like there was cotton in his ears, when the green-eyed boy he'd never met started to cry, jabbing a finger into Brett's chest and looking completely defeated. 

"You told me that you loved me!" rang out through D hall, coming from the green-eyed boys mouth, and Liam felt like his entire world was falling apart around him. Brett looked down at Liam, but Liam's own eyes were staring at him already, mouth slightly parted in shock and begging for an answer.

Green eyes turned on his heel and ran off without a second thought, his hand over his mouth as he disappeared towards the staircases, the same ones Brett and Liam used to hide out in. Liam now knew why he was so quiet.

"Liam," Brett started softly and cautiously, ignoring the looks of everyone around them, but Liam reeled back like he had been hit, all of the sudden realizing what this meant. His breaths became faster, panicked. 

He shivered like he'd been dumped into an ice bath, and his chest hurt as his eyes widened at him. "Liam-" Brett tried again.

"Don't!" Liam choked out, stepping all the way back and watching as his own vision blurred. "Don't-Don't touch me!" Had everything been a lie?

"Liam, come on, we can work this out-!" Brett insisted, reaching out to grab Liam's arm anyway. 

"No we can't!" In that moment, Liam wanted to fall into the pit in the floor. "Are-are you kidding me?" 

Brett opened his mouth and his hands dropped, but he offered no more explanation. Liam bit on his bottom lip, hard, and very closely managed not to punch him in the stomach before he left.

"Oh my God, where are they coming from?" Liam heard someone ask as he went through, referring to the running and crying freshmen, and he didn't put it together that he and Theo had run down the same hallway. 

Liam chewed on his lip, realizing that he was heading towards the staircase that he and Brett had been at so many times before and planning to run past it as fast as he could. His blue eyes were still brimming with unshed tears, ones he wanted to keep in. The only thing he could feel as he reached the staircase was anger at first, but the simmering in his chest started to cease when he saw the familiar boy in his cream-colored shirt, sitting at the top of the empty staircase and leaning his elbows on his knees. His shoulders still shook with his cries, and he was biting into his hand to be quiet.

He stopped in his tracks and one of the tears that Brett didn't deserve to have taken rolled down his cheek. It was too late to turn away.

Liam crept forward as silently as he could, his shoes falling on the tiled floor with slight thuds as he approached him. He eased himself down on the same stair as green eyes and startled when he glanced up at him, scared and hurt. Liam just shut his eyes, and when he opened them, he looked down the staircase. "I'm sorry," The boy next to him whispered. "I-I didn't know he had a boyfriend. He always told me to keep it quiet..."

Liam shook his head, feeling more tears come to the surface and fall. "He played us both," Liam replied, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

Green eyes nodded, shutting his eyes again. "It was all 'I love you, Theo' for months, and then one of my friends told me he saw you and him under the bleachers together, w-which was always one of o-our spots, and I saw you and him talking in the hall-" Theo's words cut off as his body shook with another bitten off sob, and he buried his face in his hands. 

Theo had had his own love story with Brett Talbot. A week after his freshman year started, he had been convinced that he was never going to go anywhere in that school. Even if he was cute, everyone seemed to be put off by how nervous he seemed all the time, which was why he was so surprised when Brett slid up next to him in the hallway and asked him what school he had come from, where he got his shirt, and what he did to have it fit so well. His flirting had gotten straight into Theo's head, and soon enough, his heart.

He took him to the movies just like he had Liam, unwittingly sitting with his boyfriend in the same seat Liam had been in the night before. They made out in the back and Theo had wanted to jump for joy, as he had finally had the first kiss he'd been dreaming about since sixth grade, and didn't think twice when Brett asked him to keep it to himself. He only told one other friend, Corey Bryant, who could keep a secret.

He didn't question Brett's genuity when he told him that he loved him. What was he supposed to do? Looking back on it, he laughed dryly between wiping tears off his cheeks. His older sister had told him that senior boys looking for freshmen were never good, and he couldn't wait for the I-told-you-so she would give him when he came back home looking like this. 

When he saw Brett and the other boy just talking, Theo had already been hurt, he had been suspicious and just waiting and praying that Brett would never give him a reason to believe Corey's words. But then he saw how the shorter boy's face had lit up, and there was no doubt that his friend was telling the truth. His hand was numb now, feeling foreign after showing Brett the rough side of it.

"I can't believe this happened to me," Theo admitted, looking at the stairs with laser-like intensity, just trying to keep himself from breaking down. He was already wiping tears off his face with the backs of his hands when he wasn't leaning on them. Something in him told him to just throw himself down. That would hurt less.

"I know," Liam agreed, nodding slowly. "I'm, um, I'm Liam, by the way."

"Theo," Theo said, too tired to be shy. "I promise I didn't know about you. I thought he was..."

"...perfect," Liam finished knowingly, nodding again. Theo's eyes crinkled up as he shut them tight, but he couldn't stop himself from crying again.

That time, Liam joined along and let Theo's head rest on his shoulder. What else were you supposed to do when the boy you loved sent you tumbling down like that?

__

Telling his mom wasn't pretty. Jenna was angry and sad on his behalf, holding him close even after all the tears were dried up and too many had fallen to have anymore. "I'm so sorry, baby," She said, rubbing his hair and sniffling. "I'm so, so sorry."

"It's okay," Liam said, voice scratchy from crying. "I knew what I was getting myself into."

"No," Jenna said firmly, pulling away from him. "Don't you dare blame yourself for this. There was no reason to cheat on you," She shot, holding his shoulders tightly and saying the word 'cheat' like it was poison in her mouth. "You are fifteen. If someone says things like that to you, you're going to believe them. I would know."

All Liam could do was nod. He knew he would have to get used to talks like this from now on. He had gone and gotten hurt once, and he knew how his mother was. It would be sad looks and ice cream for weeks until he managed to get back on his feet.

Liam went back into school the next day, rejecting the offer to stay home. Just like the first day, he put on a brave face while the inside was a mess. He passed by Brett's locker and didn't spare him a second look, even when the senior called out his name as he walked away. He wondered if he did the same for Theo, and if it hurt as bad.

Lunch was the time that Liam would normally sneak away with Brett to under the bleachers, which was the time they got caught just the day before, and now he was directionless. Instead of there, he went to the stairs again, not because it was their spot, because it was one of the only quiet places in the building at that time. Maybe it would be better if he got used to it without him there.

He told his friends he just wanted to be alone, but when he heard footsteps behind him, he stopped leaning his head on the wall to look up and see Theo there and couldn't help but be relieved. Theo gave him a shy smile, and Liam nodded to the space beside him before turning back to his sandwich. "Hey," Liam said softly. Theo just nodded in acknowledgement. No wonder he'd never noticed Theo around the school before, he was so quiet. 

Liam held his bag of potato chips out and offered him some, since he wasn't really hungry enough to eat them. Theo took a few, giving him a small but grateful smile.

They ate in silence for a little while before Theo looked around and shook his head. "Was this one of your spots, too?" He asked. "Since we seemed to share under the bleachers?"

Liam nodded solemnly. The sting of it all was still present, and it made him feel like he couldn't breathe. "It was," He admitted, and looked down at the floor. All of the thoughts were quickly rushing back. "You know, I can't stop thinking about why I wasn't good enough," he said, shaking his head. "Or if he meant what he said at all. What we did."

Theo shrugged and put his hand on one of Liam's shoulders. "I'm really sorry. I never wanted to be 'the other guy.'"

"But you weren't," Liam assured him. "He could have just left me. If he started dating you a week after me, he was doing it on purpose. He could've just broken up with me, didn't have to take me on dates and kiss me and tell me that he loved me." His voice cracked on the last few words, and he shook himself off. "He wanted to screw with us both."

Theo took it in and sighed. "Yeah." He fidgeted with his hands. "Guess this is why my sister told me never to date a senior guy as a freshman." 

Liam couldn't help but laugh at that one, and Theo smiled at him for the first time that day. They sat on the stairs for the rest of the lunch period, and the one after that, and soon enough, it was a tradition.

__

Liam didn't expect that he would have been friends with Theo so easily, but there was something about him that just drew him in. He was comforting and easy to be around, and never made him feel like he had to be worried about who he was or what he was doing. He didn't have to put in much effort around him, and Theo enjoyed his presence all the same.

They learned a lot about each other. Liam knew what his favorite color was, a very specific shade of blue, and that he needed to take iron supplements and had to have a lot of extra sugar to keep from completely passing the Hell out in the middle of gym class. 

He also grew to know that Theo didn't deserve to be cheated on, and was the last person Liam would ever do something like that to. He had obviously been hurt before, and was taking it a lot worse than Liam was, changed by what he'd been through with the older boy. He saw the hurt in his eyes whenever Brett passed by them in the hallway or he heard his name, and no matter who he was talking to who seemed to have romantic intentions, Theo was closed off and cautious, which he shouldn't have to be. There was a certain tenseness to his body and he could see in those green eyes that he had put walls up.

Liam knew that if he were dating him, he would never do that to him. He would treat him right, like he deserved. He wouldn't let Theo be insecure about not being enough, because he would be, without a question.

He had thought this so many times over that it was long overdue when he realized what he actually felt for his friend. They had been talking a little over three months when he had been laying in bed and thinking about him. He'd sat straight up at midnight, eyes widening and heart beating faster.

After everything, Liam had started to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. They sent him on a path of bad memories, so he had tuned them out entirely, so much that he wasn't aware he felt them when he talked to Theo.

He wanted to tell him so badly, but he was scared of what Theo would say. Would he even trust him with his heart? Trust anyone? They both doubted that Theo would be able to handle someone else trying to get close to him, but Liam knew he had to try.

__

That was why Theo could barely speak when Liam told him. They were sitting on the stairs again, and Liam hoped in the back of his mind that it wouldn't be Brett's spot anymore as the words tumbled from him like they forced themselves out. Theo's eyes had that same closed-off look as they always got, a little shiny and not nearly as deep when you looked into them, and his fingers gripped the stair underneath him hard until his knuckles turned white. His chest rose and fell too fast. 

Liam was breathing heavy and hard by the time he finally told Theo what he felt. He said all he needed to, about how he thought without a doubt that the boy in front of him would always be enough for him, that he thought he was perfect and deserved to have good things, that he hoped that he could be there for him to give them to him. Theo's lips parted slightly, and Liam was suddenly scared out of his mind that he had just ruined everything they'd built.

"I..." Theo said, almost choking on his words. "I have to think about this." His voice was weak and startled, and Liam could do nothing but nod dumbly. Theo got up off the stairs and walked off, and Liam didn't even see him looking dizzy and uncertain as he left.

Liam put his head in his hands and texted his mother to tell him what he had done, that he had just screwed up the best friendship he'd had by letting his feelings get the best of him again. He was fully expecting Theo never to speak to him again, to come back to school the next day and have a silent agreement that anything they had never happened, but was he prepared for it?

Never.

__

Theo took his time to think about it, glad that Liam had allowed him to. If he had asked something like that of Brett, he doubted he would get it, but Liam knew how to keep him from being pressured.

That was one of the things he weighed into it when he sat through the rest of his classes and the night after. What Liam had said to him had taken him by surprise, and it scared him out of his mind. When he'd gotten involved with Brett, there was nothing to warn him of it all falling apart. Now that he knew, he was even more nervous to do anything with Liam, someone so important to him that he couldn't afford to lose.

Every time he started to lean towards saying yes to the boy he hadn't meant to fall for, Brett flashed back into his mind, how broken and lost he'd felt for weeks after he found out that it had all been a game to him. Using him for nothing more than fun. 

"You wouldn't be just fun to me," Liam had said, grabbing his hand and rubbing his thumb over Theo's knuckles before Theo had pulled away out of anxiety. "You'd always be enough for me, Theo."

There was no way to tell for sure that he was being true, but then again, there had been nothing during Brett's ruse to suggest that he wasn't. For priding himself on reading people, Theo couldn't tell at all what he was meant to do.

He put his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his kitchen table as his mind drifted back to Liam. For just a minute, he managed to forget about Brett and focus on who really mattered.

He thought about the way Liam had been making him feel for awhile now, feelings he pretended weren't there until they were all threatening to pour out at his and Liam's feet. He thought about how Liam was always there for him, literally a shoulder to cry on from day one, and that he was never insecure around him, the only one who didn't make him want to crawl away and check himself in a mirror before going any further. It hadn't been that way with Brett.

And nothing, nothing could beat how it felt when Liam tried to reach for his hands again, getting no response, and still telling him that he was perfect anyway. Those words sunk in and hit deep. 

Maybe Brett had told him he was cute and he loved him, but things like that couldn't beat the ones like "you're perfect" and "you're enough."

Theo made his decision with a racing heart at that kitchen table, pushing back the doubt and praying it could stay back until he got to see Liam the next day.

__

Liam was staring down at the staircase again, his lunch untouched almost halfway through the period. He'd accepted awhile ago that his fears had come true. The space next to him was empty like it hadn't been in months, cold, and Liam couldn't look at it.

He almost didn't hear it when Theo came up behind him, steps faltering and clumsy with nervousness, and he took a deep breath when Theo sat next to him.

Green Eyes reached for his hand that was resting on the top stair and placed his own on top of it, and Liam's heart began to lift. No...

"Did you mean it?" Theo asked softly, meeting Liam's eyes. This time, Theo's weren't guarded, but more open than he had ever seen them before. "About being enough for you?"

Liam just nodded frantically, biting down on his lip. "Every word," he rushed, and he would swear that the prettiest thing he'd ever seen was Theo's watery smile after he said it. His heart soared as he grinned back, the grip on his hand becoming tighter as their fingers slipped together and interlocked only a little clumsily. Liam looked at him with wonder, and Theo let out a tiny, breathless laugh of disbelief. 

"Liam?" Theo asked meekly. Everything was out there, his entire being opened up for Liam to see like it hadn't been in so long. 

"Yeah?" Liam said, hanging onto every sound Theo made.

"C-can I kiss you?" Theo asked, and Liam took back what he said about seeing the prettiest thing. The blush that came over his face after he said it was the best by far. 

"Yes," Liam gasped out, suddenly a lot closer to Theo than he had thought but not minding it at all.

When Theo's lips met his for the first time, Liam felt everything all over again, but better. It was like everything had fallen into place after being torn apart for so long. Liam gasped and Theo took the chance to deepen it, not waiting any longer. 

Theo's hands cupped Liam's neck and Liam's fingers found their way into the short hairs near the base of his neck, and breathing was no longer a priority. Wrapped up in each other, they didn't even hear people passing by them, and couldn't care either. With Liam, Theo didn't have to hide or jump apart whenever they heard a noise, because they belonged to each other and only each other.

Maybe Brett had stolen some of their firsts, but Liam was planning on taking them all back with Theo. With him, he could ignore what he'd lost and focus on what he had.

__

Liam and Theo wished they could go back in time and tell their past selves that their first relationship wouldn't be the end of the world. The boy who cheated on them when they were fifteen wouldn't mean anything to them in the coming years, or really, after a few months.

Liam, however, mattered to Theo for far longer than fifteen. They went through the years together, hand-in-hand, just like they had been right in front of Brett just to rub it in his face. Sixteen, they helped each other prepare for their driver's tests. Seventeen, Theo came out to his parents with Liam right by his side in case it didn't go well, which it did, and he stayed right there anyway. Eighteen, they walked offstage with their high school diplomas and right into each other's arms.

Nineteen and Liam and Theo were going to the same college, looking back at years past and smiling through the good and the bad, remembering how serious everything seemed when they were that young.

In the end, Brett Talbot ceased to matter in their minds, but they still thanked him every now and then for letting them meet, since without him, Theo might've never talked to the love of his life. 

__

One thing they made sure to tell their oldest child, a girl named for Liam's mother, when she turned fifteen and went into highschool, was to remember that everything happened for a reason.

They both dropped her off on her first day at school and smiled at each other after she disappeared into the other side of the grey double doors at Beacon Hills High. 

"Remember being fifteen?" Liam asked his husband, covering one of the hands on the steering wheel with his own and squeezing. 

Theo smiled at him, leaning over to kiss him. 

"Always."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! I was getting so sad writing Theo...I do feel like canonically and in AUs, he would take being cheated on very hard. Poor baby just needs some love :(
> 
> Comments are always appreciated! As I've said before, I always read them even if I don't reply, since I never know what to say :,) I'm working on it, I promise.
> 
> Love you!!


End file.
